Thursday, January 5, 2012

New build here; the last updated version was in the wrong folder, and I've made a few more tweaks etc.
In the absence of any other user testing (see below) I've found that making the videos has been really useful for finding problems.
For example, I've noticed myself occasionally getting confused between the Midi and Modulator sends/receive menus, so I hit upon the genius idea of using a different font & colour for the Midi ones, which actually seems to work...

I'm still desperate for some user testing to report, so please do get in touch. I have to hand in the write-up in a little over two weeks, and as yet have nothing to write about anyone else's experiences. It all works fine for me, but then it would - I need to know if it makes sense to anyone else.
Even if you just 'mail me to say "This thing is crap - I can't make head nor tail of it", I swear I'd still be grateful!

Talking of videos, I posted some new ones: Tonelab as Modular Synth and How to Build Your Own Modules.
(FYI, the distortion in the Build Your Own video turned out to be due to be an issue with my DSP settings, but I didn't want to do the whole thing again.)
Also, in the early stages, I posted a few videos of simple jams, whereas more recently I've tended to tack on a bit of a jam at the end of each tutorial, to reinforce whatever it is I've just been talking about.
For the Modular Synth video, I've posted a separate jam, "synth5.mov" because I was having too much fun to edit it, and it would have made the whole thing a bit long if I'd edited them together.
All three are below.








Monday, January 2, 2012

Another year, another Youtube video (and module)

Bez & Jake get festive.

After a brief break for New Year (spent in the New Forest, with family & dogs - very nice it was too) I managed to finish a couple of those videos.
They're both a bit long, so feel free to skip to the bits that interest you.
It's been interesting for me doing these videos, because making videos is what I mostly do at work, so it's interesting to be the other side of the camera - and not at all easy!
I'm not unaware of the effect that being 'on camera' has on some people - I'm used to seeing people who happily get up in front of a class of 200 students every day and talk for an hour, dry up when a camera is pointed at them. But at least now I can empathise with greater sincerity as they stumble through the fifteenth take.

Anyway, I also made another Generator module just before Christmas, which you can get here (or the full package below). It's a delay-based pitch-shifter, and the basic design comes from Miller Puckette's excellent "The Theory and Practice of Electronic Music", which has been the source of quite a few modules, and as it can be downloaded for free, I can't understand why anyone interested in electronic music would be without a copy.
Whilst we're on the subject of free electronic music PDF's, here's a couple that I hope one day to be able to understand, if not in their entirety, then at least partially.

The two videos are on the subjects of rhythm creation (I had originally used the term 'munging', but then found some rather distasteful definitions online, so dropped it) and an overview of some of the sequencer modules.

Get the latest package with the new module and other tweaks here.